Rookie Joey Logano seems to have mastered Talladega, finishes third Sunday
Joe Gibbs Racing's Joey Logano finished third in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
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TALLADEGA, Ala. – Many NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers dread coming to Talladega Superspeedway, but that likely doesn’t include Joe Gibbs Racing’s Joey Logano, who scored his second top-10 finish in two races at the 2.66-mile track with a third-place in Sunday’s Amp Energy 500.
Logano finished ninth at Talladega in April, and then dodged the late-race crashes Sunday for a top-five.
“I didn't see any of them,” Logano said of Sunday’s wrecks. “I had my big one at Dover, so I know you can survive them and be OK. So I wasn't really worried about it. The race seemed to be pretty calm until the end. As far as having a strategy at the end of the race or anything, whoever was in front of me I was going to push like heck and hope for the best. You almost can't even have a plan.”
Logano was referencing an accident at Dover in which he rolled down the track. Sunday at Talladega, he led once for a lap and ran among the leaders at different times of the race. After a red-flag period for Ryan Newman’s grinding crash, Logano was in the top 10 and then dodged another multicar crash with one lap to go.
“You know, sitting there on the red flag you're thinking, ‘What can I do to get myself the best finish I can?’” Logano said. “And you sit there and think. The only thing you can do is have a good restart, and it all kind of depends on what the guy's doing in front of you. I was able to get the good restart and the caution came out anyway, so …”
The finish was his third top-five and seventh top-10 of the season and moved him to 19th in the Cup standings. The rookie said he spent a lot of the race learning what to do and what not to do.
“Throughout the whole race I was just putting my car in different positions,” Logano said. “Trying to learn as much as I can about being around other cars and what helps and what doesn't. I try to make as many friends out there as I can for the end of the race and be positioned there at the end.
“So a lot of it is being in the right place at the right time, and missing the wrecks and being ahead of it all. So overall it's good. As soon as I got the last restart behind Kasey [Kahne], and I was shoving him, and he was just pushing the 26 [of winner Jamie McMurray] ahead, and got our whole lane going, so it was a good run for us today.”
